Another RPG company with financial difficulties

[Belen]

I've never quite understood why D&D has to be locked in to a single genre, or why the existence of a more unusual setting, be it Eberron or Magic the Gathering's Dominaria, infringes on other people's ability to play the same old fantasy campaigns.

I think the main fear on the fanbase is that WOTC will not support the recognized version of play any longer.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I think the main fear on the fanbase is that WOTC will not support the recognized version of play any longer.

I'm of the mind of "So What?" I'm honestly sick to death of the myriad of LotR and FR-style campaign settings. Give me something fresh and interesting. This is why I like Eberron so much, since it's not entirely like everything else we've seen before. There is plenty of material out there for "classic" fantasy settings that no one should want for a long time to come. Let's see some things that push the boundaries and aren't just another cookie-cutter setting.

Kane

 

[Nisarg]

I've never quite understood why D&D has to be locked in to a single genre, or why the existence of a more unusual setting, be it Eberron or Magic the Gathering's Dominaria, infringes on other people's ability to play the same old fantasy campaigns.

Uh, in the case of the "MtG setting for D&D" business, it had less to do with "dominaria" as a place, then with the political ramifications of it.
Remember: when Wizards first bought out TSR, a lot of gamers were convinced that would be the nail in the coffin of D&D; that D&D would end up being used as an adjunct to magic the gathering, or that we'd have to buy manuals printed on a series of "booster pack" collectible cards, or god knows what. Wizards had, at the time of buying out TSR, been the "evil" company that had made the game a lot of people blamed roleplaying's troubles on (magic), and that had shut down its own roleplaying division a little while earlier because it apparently wasn't making enough profit. There was a lot of reasons (all later proved baseless) for which to fear Wizards would do nothing good for D&D.

I think Wizards was pretty wise in avoiding the connection between Magic and D&D as much as possible.

However, I do agree that Wizards caters to its existing fanbase too much these days, though perhaps not as much in the sense you mean: I see the lack of a simpler ruleset, and the lack of a more affordable cover price (due to hardcovers, glossy, etc etc) to be the fault of that catering. If D&D could be released in a softcover format, or better yet, a series of comic-book booklet formats or something like that, it would be far more likely to get the attention of the kids, than three big hardcover books that put a $90 hole in your wallet.

Nisarg

 

[Old Fezziwig]

However, I do agree that Wizards caters to its existing fanbase too much these days, though perhaps not as much in the sense you mean: I see the lack of a simpler ruleset, and the lack of a more affordable cover price (due to hardcovers, glossy, etc etc) to be the fault of that catering. If D&D could be released in a softcover format, or better yet, a series of comic-book booklet formats or something like that, it would be far more likely to get the attention of the kids, than three big hardcover books that put a $90 hole in your wallet.

I could not agree with this more. That every single book WotC comes out with now (save the Map Folios and the Eberron modules) has been hardback is a killer. It's too damn intimidating and expensive. If they were willing to make a soft-cover PHB with black and white line art at a reduced price, they might have something there...

 

[Maggan]

Catering for the converted

However, I do agree that Wizards caters to its existing fanbase too much these days, though perhaps not as much in the sense you mean: I see the lack of a simpler ruleset, and the lack of a more affordable cover price (due to hardcovers, glossy, etc etc) to be the fault of that catering. If D&D could be released in a softcover format, or better yet, a series of comic-book booklet formats or something like that, it would be far more likely to get the attention of the kids, than three big hardcover books that put a $90 hole in your wallet.

Nisarg

And yet, according to Charles Ryan at WotC, the number of D&D-players is up, and last year was huge for D&D. So they must be doing something right?

It'd be interesting to know who the people are who have joined the party? If it is kids, or teenagers, or old gamers taking up the hobby again. And the Basic Set, it would be interesting to see how it is doing, saleswise.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[Maggan]

And yet...

I could not agree with this more. That every single book WotC comes out with now (save the Map Folios and the Eberron modules) has been hardback is a killer. It's too damn intimidating and expensive. If they were willing to make a soft-cover PHB with black and white line art at a reduced price, they might have something there...

I might be totally off track here, but what I have been hearing from WotC and many other publishers is "hardback plus full color equals more sales". Which would put a damper on the theory that a cheapo version of the PH would be a huge success.

Don't misunderstand me, there'd be a market, but probably to the already converted, who needs a cheap extra PH. Like the Mongoose Pocket Handbooks, I suspect.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[francisca]

Dude, do you remember the fuss in the D&D community in the late 90s when rumors of a MTG setting appeared? I think that WOTC was worried about large masses with pitchforks and torches.

Apparently not!

Nisarg's post jogged my memory, however.

 

[John Morrow]

That's probably why Paladium, for all its oft-repeated problems, still captures a good portion of the youth market.

Paladium is what I like to call a vulture. It basically feeds off of D&D's table scraps by catering to a segment of the D&D audience and giving them more of what their style wants. In fact, I'd argue that Paladium is one of the few companies ot realize that D&D is the gatekeeper game so it tries to cater to the same sort of audience that enjoys D&D rather than trying to find the odd interactive storyteller or frustrated novelist that managed to enter the hobby via D&D.

The buy-in to D&D is way too high, the industry's designer base way too concerned with what they and their current audience like rather than what the potential audience likes, the traditions and tropes that new players neither know nor care about given far, far too much weight.

The WotC designers were trying to avoid the facture that 2E caused and were trying to encourage all of the 1E fans who never moved on and 2E fans who were pretty happy to give 3E a trie. I think they did a reasonably decent job of it.

 

[kenobi65]

Dude, do you remember the fuss in the D&D community in the late 90s when rumors of a MTG setting appeared? I think that WOTC was worried about large masses with pitchforks and torches.

IIRC, I read recently that at least one of the reasons Dominaria D&D never materialized is that the M:tG team at WotC was loathe to give up any control of the "setting" to the D&D team.

 

[John Morrow]

The typical online forum pundit today wants RPGs that are either very low-rules and high on "story", or very high on rules and high on story. Neither of these are ideal for getting new blood.

If you want to design a good beginners game, listen to what the "typical online forum pundit" has to say on RPGnet, The Forge, etc. and do exactly the opposite.

What they all seem to miss is something even far more fundamental than a focus on tactics or story. The beginning role-player needs to know how to do this role-playing thing. "Figure it out yourself," something I hear often from low-rules advocates, just doesn't work. It's like an experienced driver getting into the passenger seat with a person who has never driven a car before and saying, "Let's drive to the mall." Yes, driving a car is second nature once you get the hang of it but expecting driving to be second nature to someone with no experience is just silly. The same goes with role-playing. Telling a beginner to "just wing it" is silly. If they knew how to "just wing it", they wouldn't need to buy any rules.

And that is why we lose new players today. They aren't being catered to. In fact, if a company had the brilliance to make a game designed for younger, newer players based on what those players would really like (ie. a simple but concrete set of rules allowing for something fun without seriousness, and comprehensibly identifiable as a "game" rather than as "art", "group therapy", or "improvisational theatre"...oh, and cheap), I'd wager that far too many of the forum-pundits here would slam it into the ground for being "crap" or "broken", or "discouraging roleplay", etc etc.

Training wheels help a person learn how to ride a bicycle without falling over. Once you know how to keep the bicycle from falling over yourself, they only get in the way. Rules can be the same way. If you can learn how to do what the rules do without using the rules, then the rules only get in the way. But in role-playing, it's as if upon learning how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, a bicycle rider suddenly turned into an evangelist for learning how to ride bicycles without them, even though they learned how to ride with them.

Its sad, but really its that exclusionist, incestuous, "we want only what we like and we don't need new people" mentality that is killing the industry; not having too many d20 companies around. Its the mentality of someone saying "my life with master" would be a good introductory rpg with a straight face. Its the total disconnect from reality of people talking about the "state of the rpg industry" and claiming that D&D should be exluded from consideration in the discussion. Its the quixotism of believing the average gamer gives a damn about Origins, or what's happening on the Forge, or even what's happening on Enworld.

I think that's yet another problem. I think that's a fragmentation of an already small base. Rather than trying to produce games with a broad appeal that allow different styles to co-exist, we have people writing games that essentially tell other styles, "Go find another table to sit at. We're not interested in what you want." In a hobby as small as role-playing that relies on getting a group of people together to play, I think that's a disaster. We need games that make it easier to put a group together, not games that make it harder.